The problem which had to be solved during the research work which preced the discovery of the present composition was to provide a cocoa drink with improved taste properties, namely a milkless instant cocoa drink whose organoleptic properties substantially approximate milk chocolate. It is indeed known that drinks of the "chocolate" or "cocoa breakfast" type which contain cocoa, sugar and milk (the latter being provided by using either milk powder or new milk) have organoleptic properties, such as taste, texture, body and smoothness which were, until now, impossible to achieve without a substantial amount of milk constituents, i.e. using simply water.
Yet, it is now possible, to obtain a cocoa drink whose taste properties approximate that of milk-chocolate drinks substantially better than all instant cocoa products known to date. This result was achieved by an appropriate quantity of food permissible mineral salts and with a minimum of milk proteins. Thus, for instance, a conventional milk-chocolate drink contains usually about 220-250 g/l of dissolved substances. Taking into account that, in this case, the proportion of sugars plus cocoa solids amounts to only about 70 to 90 g of dissolved solids, it is recognized that the quantity of plain milk dry solids is relatively very high (100-150 g/l). Now, in the present invention, very interesting results are achieved with much lower quantities of total dry substances (of the order of 100-150 g/l) which represents substantial weight and volume savings, even when optionally using additional milk fats and milk proteins. The dry powder composition of the present invention contains by weight 5 to 30 parts of soluble cocoa and 55 to 70 parts of sugar or other sweetening carbohydrates, with additional ingredients to made 100% by weight including a mixture of mineral salts containing, K 16.8-23.2 wt. %, Cl 18.1-25.1 wt. %, PO.sub.4 12.6-16.8 wt. %, CO.sub.3 1.3-2.17 wt. %, SO.sub.4 1.10-1.65 wt. %, Na 5.4-7.0 wt. %, citrate 23.3-30.2 wt. %, Ca 5.42-6.86 wt. % and Mg 1.79-2.81 wt. %, the mixture providing a buffering action at pH 5.8-6.5 when it is dissolved in water.